Solus And Riyanna
by Lishka Vida
Summary: The God of Darkness and the Goddess of Death join forces and make... a child? How does this turn out read and see... ** please keep in mmind that this is just an idea line from a book I am writing so some minor details may change like names R&R please
1. Chapter 1

"This is ri-god damn-diculous!" Solus was (once again) rendered unable to sleep by the unmistakable (and frankly disgusting) sounds coming from Riyanna's room.

He was out of bed and on his way to (once again) tell her off about her noisy (not to mention disgusting) ways when a crash loud enough to wake the dead came from behind him… back in his room.

Swearing and grumbling under his breath, Solus returned to his room to find his two year old son on the floor, picking large pieces of what used to be Solus's oldest (and favorite) chair out of his legs as the wounds healed with the speed that could only be mustered by a child of immortals. Upon seeing his father, the mischievous child smiled and handed a bruised red rose petal out to his father.

"I did it," the mute signed, very proud of himself.

"Go back to bed and don't get up until morning." Solus said dismissively to his only son.

After seeing the boy to bed, Solus noticed the noise in Riyanna's room had ceased. If he listened harder than he wanted to, he could hear her leaving her room, presumably to take a shower. Solus hurried to intercept her. Just in case she moved faster than he could get to the bathroom (which he highly doubted) he locked the door with his mind.

"Riyanna, just because Arkelus can't talk doesn't mean he can't hear either. What the hell is your problem and what were you thinking bringing your 'guests' here when everyone is home?" Solus wasn't loud, but he was angry.

"I'm not going to deal with you right now." Riyanna replied dismissively.

"And why are you teaching our son God Arts? I thought we had agreed-"

"He needs to know at the very least how to escape a bad situation without getting tracked. It's only petals, which he would have learned eventually anyway. I would rather he knows something than nothing." Her voice was too clam for Solus's liking.

"He's your son. Why are you killing him?" Solus pursued.

"I'm not. No one can. He's the bright and warm-blooded immortal son of Death and Darkness. Even if you do, I will never allow him to die." Her voice shook, but otherwise it was very calm. She was refusing to argue.

"If you keep depriving me of sleep or putting Arkelus in danger, Death will have no son."

"Why on earth did you move in with me? I was doing fine on my own." Riyanna complained, not for the first or last time.

"I was afraid you would kill my kid. Even while you were pregnant you weren't careful. If I wasn't here he would probably be dead by now."

Riyanna blocked him out. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last that Solus would use her health against her. Everyone, including her brother the God of Life, saw her son as a future problem. When she acquired toxemia, they told her it was an omen. Now her son was a beauty, a mute, and had the potential for massive amounts of power. When Solus had found out she was sick, he had hurried to her side, shaking his head at her carelessness. He never moved back out. Not that she could blame him. It was hard enough trying to be the goddess of Death without the child. Now she had to keep eyes on her son consistently, and she couldn't really spare the time. He was two now and could be put down for naps for two hours at a time, but she did realize that soon she would not be able to have things so easy after about five years. Solus had the same problem, but was not so busy now-a-days.

Solus would soon be out of a job. No one really cared too much for invoking real powers from real darkness. Every once in a while there would be someone who would show some promise. They usually died before anything really got done. Then there were the "Satanic worshippers", a title that was oxymoronic to Solus. They would call him up from whatever dark crevice he could manage to find in the human world (usually over by the vampires) to ask him for or to do some of the dumbest things Solus had ever heard of, then had the nerve to be angry about it later.

There was one incident that had always stuck in his craw. A couple of college students were lucky enough to find what had been Riyanna's Book of Shadows. Using a variation on one of her spells to call solitude to her, they managed to call Solus so loud he was sure he couldn't have been the only one who heard the call. With a massive head ache and an even larger bad mood, he trekked over to the dorm to be sure he was never summoned so loudly again.

Upon entering, Solus realized two things instantaneously. First, whoever had summoned him was a complete idiot and he would be sure to have Riyanna give them particularly horrible and painful deaths. The second (which had lead to the first conclusion) was that they had used fire to summon him.

"Wow. Just wow. Fire to summon a God of Darkness? Truly amazing." Solus told them from a safely dark corner of the room.

"I told you stupid. He doesn't like light. Put it out!" The fire was effectively extinguished.

"What do you want?" Solus asked, then he mumbled, "so I can go home and go to sleep."

"We summoned you and now are your masters. You shall do as we command and make us the most powerful beings of darkness to roam this world!"

Solus hung and shook his head. They were idiots who had no idea what the hell they were getting themselves into and made assumptions probably from old movies.

"Oookay. First of all you command no one. Just because you woke me up in the middle of the day- well here it's night but that's beside the point- doesn't mean you have any kind of control or anything from me. You can ask me a favor, but if you thought that it was all gonna be a poof of smoke and three wishes you've got another thing coming. Now, as for your _command_ I'm gonna say… No. First of all, you two don't deserve to be the strongest things in the house, let alone the world. Secondly, darkness does not suit either of you pussies. And thought the third, I can't make you anything. I signed a treaty with the vamps, so it's them you need to try to contact. Any questions?"

The two idiots looked at him blankly. Neither of them knew what to make of the specter they had summoned. After a moment, Solus decided that was as loud as it was going to get and left. Now that he thought about it, he had gone home to Riyanna, and that was most likely the night their son was conceived. Just an errant thought.

As for Riyanna, her job got harder in some ways, but much easier in others. Crime was declining, but so was worldly satisfaction. While young girls were less and less being murdered


	2. Chapter 2

As for Riyanna, her job got harder in some ways, but much easier in others. Crime was declining, but so was worldly satisfaction. While young girls were less and less being murdered by psychopathic rapists, they were now trying to find the fastest and cheapest ways to loose weight, or otherwise mae their bodies look "better" according to the modern fads in the world today. That meant some of the most disgusting deaths she had seen in the last thousand years.

The disgusting causes of death and the added stress of having a child who was silent... literally... was something that everyone said would one day drive her mad. She didn't doubt them, but she knew she would have chosen her succesor by then. Therefore, she didn't care.

She got into the shower and for a while just stood there. The hot water felt good, but she knew her time was almost up. She needed to check on her Death Angels before she went off on her own to attend the death of the God of Light, Solus's oldest freind gone enemy.

This would require all the energy she had to channel the powers and spirit of the God of Light (in many ways her opposite) and seperate them so that the world didn't have to go without light and shadow. The power was to go o the chosen succesor and the spirit into the underworld, as it should have gone ages ago, back before she was the Goddess of Death... when she hd three brothers...

She would never forgive Solus for killing her two older brothers... neither would te God of Life- her twin brother Ryan- for that matter.

She could remember the day she found outshe was in love with him the first time. It revoltedher so much she tried to kill herself, thus sealing her fate as the heir to the title Goddess of Death.

Arkelus began to call her mentally, meaning it wasn't an emergency, but he needed her, interrupting her depressing stream of thought. She hurried out of the bathroom, into some clothes, around Solus's room, and to her son.

"I did it right and Daddy told me to stay in bed." The child signed in complaint.

Technically, she wasn't supposed to teach Arkelus the God Arts she and Solus had been taught as humans, but she figured it was her son and she could whatever in the Hell she wanted with him. The boy would have to be the heir to some god's domain and she wanted him to be ready, unlike the current set of gods who had to die horrible deaths before discovering they were gods... literally. There was a lot of confusion nd imbalance in those days.

"Don't worry about it honey. How far did you go?" She asked her son to keep him from getting too upset.

"Only into Daddy's room. I broke a chair though." He signed. Then he showed her the rapidly disappearing scar on his leg.

"That may be why Daddy was rude. Now go to sleep. We need to work on your archery if you want to compete." She tucked him in and turned the light out.

Walking out she was intercepted not only by Solus, but her brother as well.

"I have something you need to see." Was all her brother said to her. All business so it must be about her son. They all went into the living room.

"Your son is fucking everything up. Aparrently he's the heir to the God of the Afterlife."

"Wait... Who the Hell is the God of the Afterlife?" She asked. She was the soul bearer at the moment. SHe and her Death Angels (which were little more than clones with her powers) took the life from the body, and escorted them to their temporary resting place where Ryan then took those souls to the next life they would lead. That or she took them to their permanent resting place where they were to remain for the rest of eternity.

"Just my point. Your son is going to be a God on his own. A God neither of Death or Life, not of Light or Dark."

"Neutral and thus almost all powerful. I told you we shouldn't teach him God Arts!" Solus was furious, but his voice was calm. Riyanna flinched at the sound. Their relationship had always been very physical. This wasn't a fight she thought she would win this time.

"He needs to know something. The borderline between Life and Death is unstable enough without having someone clueless trying to maintian the lines. You remember when we were first Gods. The first hundred years were a complete catastrophy! There was no shadow, no life and absolutely no peace, and that was just the first decade. When everyone else got out of wack the entire world was nearly destroyed not once but five times! Tell me I'm wrong." She chalenged. Ryan looked away.

"You're wrong." Solus said and stalked away to his room, slamming the door.

"Think this over. Then come back to me adn let me knnow what you decide." Ryan vanished at the end of his thought.

Riyanna walked to the portal that marked the border of Earth and the Land of the Gods. She thought about telling her son goodbye, then resolved to make a clean break.


	3. Chapter 3

Solus sat heavily in his newly repaired chair. Everything was a mess. Riyanna had left, presumably to get some work done. Ryan was, as usual, on Earth somewhere. Why he prefered to stay in that chaotic world, Solus would never understand. Arkelus was asleep in his room, and Solus was sure he would stay there.

Solus concentrated on his job from where he sat. Soul trancending his physical form, he rose and floated down to Earth.

There were a large number of rituals going on in the human world, none of which he had any particular intrest in. Night was falling, meaning he had to slow the path of light in its tracks.

Floating, he covered the distance of the world quickly, ligering on the vampiric areas and places of death. He didn't run into Riyanna, although he was hoping he would. They needed to talk if the two of them and their son were going to be in the same house.

He smelled her sent, and following it ran into a wall of trees. This was a forest he knew well. Back before he was the God of Darkess he used to train in this forst with his friends, now all of them Gods. This was also where he met Riyanna ad he killed her oldest brother, driving her into a rage that killed her twin making him the God of Life, and later her suicide making her the Goddess of Death.

Needless to say this place was a place of death and despair, so Solus could see why she would make her way here.

He saw her sitting on the edge of the waterfall where she had thrown herself off so long ago.

"Are you going to go home anytime soon?" Heasked her. She didn't look up. Solus took a step in her diection and she vanished like dust blown by the wind. An illusion.

She didn't want to be found.

Back at the hose in the Land of the Gods, Arkelus was awoken by a sound in the house, but when he reached out with his power to see who it was, like his mother had taught him, he found that it was neither his father or his mother and none of the gods that he knew of.

He stayed in his bed. He had sensed earlier that his father was in no good mood (he rarely was) and would be even angrier if Arkelus invited guests without permission.

His bedroom door opened and he caught the smell of the dead. Not the almost enticing smell of his mother, but the smell of days old carrion. He gagged at the smell.

"You, son of the Gods!" The thing called. Its voice was deep and hoarse. The sound that would make one cover their ears ad pray never to have to let go.

Not for the first time in his extremely short life, Arkelus thanked the stars he was mute and couldn't say anything even if he wanted to.

"Ah, a mute eh? Even better. KNow this cild: I will return for you. Then you wll not be so afraid. Then your father will be unable to stop me!" The voice came again. Arkelus buried himself deeper in his blankets and pillows, and the spector disappaeared with it's voice, it's smell, and the fear that had been in Arkelus.

Riyanna wandered her old homeland, now covered over with casinos and large buildings. Nothing to show that here, the gods had been born killed and reborn. She knew Solus had probably caught her sent again, so she made a golum of herself and left it there.

The next instant she was in the Carribian at the bedside of a man who was dying of a snake bite. He was to go to the God of the Underworld, and from there, who knew. He would not get another life. He had had too many as it was.

"Please, big brother! Don't die! Don't go!" A small boy was curled up next to the dying man. She could hear her own screams echoed in the boy's mournful cry.

"Will he be okay?" The man's soul had finally departed from the boy was crying to a corpse.

"There is no way to know." She answered. "If it is any comfort to you, he will live."

"It is comfort enough. Where do I go from here? Hell?" the ghoul asked.

"No. Not yet anyway. I know not if that is your final destination, but it is not your first. Come. I have other things to attend to." One of them being to find a way to get the screaming out of her head once and for all.

She grabbed the man's hand and they were transported immediatly to the Ghost plane. A portal opened.

"I can't go in there!" he yelled. This happened sometimes with older souls. They didn't wanted anotherlife. It was worse because she had told him that his brother would live. Communication made them want to stay.

She ignored him and instead held fast to his hand. She let him struggle for a while. Then she grabbed him by the neck with her free hand and threw him into the poral.

Once he was inside, the portal closed and she found herself in the human world again. Solus was waiting for her.

"Hope you didn't have too much trouble?" She greeted her once lover.

"It took me a while, but you're predictable." He answered.

"I'm not going back, so you can stop following me now." She answered.

"Why?" Solus pursued.

"It's my fault remember? I'm causing Arkelus problems. So I've decided to die. After a while he won't even know who I was." She answered. It was painful to say aloud, but it was said.

"It will be worse without you. He needs his mother." Solus disagreed.

"You're better with him than I am. He doesn't need me." She said, the tried to petal away, but Solus grabbed hold of her arm.

"I didn't get to run, so neither do you." He sad, fury in his quiet voice.

"At least I'm leaving for his benefit, not mine! Now let go!"

"I shoud be telling you the same. You know you saren't supposed to talk to the dead. You do it to every big brother you come across. Get over it and let it go." Solus refused to let go.

Then the both of them heard something that made their blood run cold. Arkelus's fearful silent scream. His aura calling out for help.

Both of them were home in an instant.

"You left him alone you imbecile!" Riyanna yelled at Solus the moment they walked into the door.

Solus ignored her and opened Arkelus's door.

"What the Hell is that smell?" Riyanna asked.

"What smell?" Sous asked.

"I can smell carrion. It's just like the smell when I died." Riyanna said thoughtfully. "Arkelus did someone come in here?"

Arkelus looked at her mutely. He had a feeling telling his mother was a bad idea.

"I see. Okay. Keep your little friend a secret. Just remember the release rule!" Riyanna said cheerfully, putting her son back to bed. She and Solus walked into the living room.

"I'll stay, but only until we figure out the deal with the smell." She said, loungng on a sofa.

"What the hell is the'release rule'?" Solus asked distracted.

"I came up with it to take all his dangerous little secrets away. If he keeps a secret from us he must have it written down some where because secrets have power and that power must have an outlet. Once he gets around to drawing who was in his room he'll hide it, I'll find it and we'll have a closed case." Riyanna smirked. Young minds were so plyable.

She got up and stalked to her room. She needed sleep. Solus followed in behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

"You. Out." Riyanna said without turning around. Solus stopped but didn't turn around.

"I figured if you were going to grace me with your presence a little longer, we may as well talk about this problem before it gets out of hand." he responded instead of the much snider comment he had on hand.

"I need sleep. Haven't gotten any lately." She mumbled as she climbed into her bed.

"Not my fault. We need to talk." Solus pursued.

"Okay fine we're talking. I hope you don't mind my sleep talking." Riyanna closed her eyes and began to fade. Solus grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.

Riyanna's eyes turned a glowing gold. Her fury was almost overwelming, but as exhausted as she was, she knew she couldn't beat him, and that was the only thing that held her tongue.

"Let's start with the smell that you smelled in Arkelus's room."

"You didn't miss anything. It's one of the worst smells: the smell of a rotting corpse that was dipped in water and left in the sun. I smelled it when I died. I know for a fact that someone was in his room."

"Who?" solus pressed, verbally and physically. Riyanna was trying to get away and there was no way he was letting her get away. Not if she knew something. So he had her pressed into the wall. Her claustrophobia was her disadvantage.

"I don't know. Do you remember what I said after I died? I said that I knew someone was with me, but I didn't know if it was my brother. I was hoping it was."

"It may be. If it was your brother then, and it was your brother now, it makes sense to visit his nephew."

"But then why would Arkelus keep it a secret from us? Not it wasn't my brother." Riyanna tried to think for a moment then looked Solus in the eye. "Let me go. There's nothing really to discuss. We don't know anything and it's too late to ask anyone who might know." Her breathing, even though it was unnecessary, was getting shallow as she started to panic.

"We go to see Ryan after you collect your death angels in the morning. He might know something. And don't waste my time trying to make me chase you." He let her go.

"I said I would stay until this is solved-"

"You're staying for a good sixteen years and maybe longer than that." Solus warned.

"No. I'm leaving as soon as this problem is solved. You can't make me stay short of a godly order and you won't do that because of the consequences." Riyanna challenged. Solus slammed her back into the wall, fury clearly written on his face.

"I just might risk it." He released his hold on her throat and strode to the door. "See you in the morning."

Riyanna snuck into her son's room that night.

Arkelus had thrown off his covers and was curled in a ball with his thumb in his mouth, sleeping peacefully. His hair was comming out of the usual ponytail it was in. Careful not to wake him, Riyanna gently tugged the rubber band out of his hair and smoothed it out on his pillow. Then she picked up the cover and laid it over his form. It was a cold night and the house remained cold due to the nature of the creatures that lived there. It didn't bother her or Solus, but their son was warm, living...

She sat in the rocking chair next to his bed and sighed softly, surrendering to the feeling of pride in the beauty and intellegence of her only son.

"Mai mult decât viaţa mea. That's how much I love you." She whispered.

"Where'd you learn that?" Solus asked from the doorway.

"On one of our stays in Romania. You should know what it means. I wrote it on the mirror that night." She whispered, irritable.

"I forgot what it meant."

"More than my own life. Did you have to come here?" She asked. She had wanted to spend some time alone with her son. "Dacă nu plec eu va trebui să te omor." (If you don't go away I'll have to kill you.)She added under her breath.

"I'll leave you be then." Solus responded. He walked away slower than Riyanna wanted, but then to be fair he couldn't get away from her fast enough if he just vanished into thin air to her.

"Would you really use a godly order on me?" She asked so quietly most gods wouldn't have heard it. Solus and Riyanna though, despite their fighting, used to be deeply in love, and so knew each other's every move like their own.

"You can't leave him. He needs you to figure out what's going on." Solus answered without turning around. he went to his room and closed the door, sprawling out on his bed.

It was dawn by the time Riyanna left her son's room. Watching him sleep was starting tobecome her addiction. She always felt that as long as he slept peacefully, all was right with the world.

She gathered her death's angels quickly and much earlier than usual that morning.

She would have a busy day the next day; one of her angels saw a huge car crash and there were a lot of dead and injured. She was in the middle of checking her list when a god found and walked up to her.

"Hey, Death! We got work to do!" It was The God of Destinies. He work closely with Ryan most of the time, bestowing a destiny on every person who comes into the world.

"What happened?" She asked. She was sure she didn't sound interested, and she didn't look up from her list. She didn't really like working with him. He can't remember his human name, so he's had everyone call him God. Get it?

"You know that massive crash that your friggin angel just brought up? There are survivors." He said, obviously irritated.

"There are survivors in every accident. What's your problem?" Riyanna asked, not out of intrest but because if she didn't ask he would never get to the point.

"There aren't supposed to be any survivors!" He growled.

"Fine. Here's what we do then. Ready? Kill them. There. See how easy that was?" She said in the same flat tone.

"But how? This is insane. The ones that are alive were supposed to be crushed by the huge 18-wheeler that was hauling lumber."

"You're the god of Destiny right? you'll figure it out. If all else fails, watch Final Destination. The last one was really clever." She answered. her list was messed up from the survivors nd she had lage notes next to them as to why they are supposed to die (she never reads those), but contrary to popular belief, she didn't have to go in order on her list. She just had to get it all done. going in order is just the easy way to do it.

God was looking at her weird still though. She sighed and closed her eyes. She placed their death's in Destiny's hands, allowing him to take their spirits away when they die.

Her problems solved she got up without a parting glance at God and weent home. As if her day hadn't been bad enough.


	5. Chapter 5

Solus was waiting when she got home. He was waiting on the couch reading something or other in the writing that had been widely used when they were godforms; children, and human at that.

"About time. That took a lot longer than it usually does." Solus sounded much more concerned than he looked, but not very much; he hadn't even spared her a glance when she walked through the door.

"God needed to talk to me. He's frustrated because my control over the dead and who affects them has grown exponentially. He needed my permission to change some of the destinies of the nearly dead." Riyanna explained as she walked to her son's room. Arkelus was sound asleep.

"He woke looking for you. When I told him you weren't here he went directly back to sleep. If you really are leaving for the rest of time, I would suggest you make sure his habit of seeing you first in the morning be broken before you disappear. He could hurt himself sleeping that long." Solus had followed her and watched his son sleep over Riyanna's shoulder.

"I suppose..." Riyanna's statement trailed off as she felt Ryan enter the house.

"Yes Ryan?" She asked. Her voice was quiet, but she hadn't needed really to speak. Ryan would always know what her question was. It was the answers that were tricky.

"I wanted to go with you to try to figure out what this mysterious happening means."

"Did you smelled anything throughly disgusting when you saved my life?" Riyanna asked.

"Something similar to a dead corpse." Solus added.

"When we died? Nope. I remember everything going black and seeing the old Angel of Life shortly after. But while everything was black, so was it silent and without any feeling. All of my senses were gone. Why do you ask?"

"Little Boy! Little Boy! Where are you, Little Boy?" Came the voice from the darkness. It sounded like a girl.

"Arkelus! Little Boy! Why are you hiding from me? You know I will find you!" The voice changed from that of a nice little girl to that of the stinky old man that had visited him the day before.

"Go away! Go away! Leave me be!" Arkelus shouted silently into the air, but as always it did no good.

"Arkelus! Arkelus! Arkelus!" The terrifying voice began to fade and then all he could hear was the sound of his mother calling franticly.

He belatedly noticed that he had been dreaming a bad dream.

"Arkelus, sweety, what's happened?" Riyanna's accent had deepened with her terror. She had heard his soundless cry of terror while they had been talking to Shay, the goddess of love, who knew nothing that was of any conscequence. She had offered no explainations but had left to save her son. Even worse, she could smell the stench of death even thicker, and it even hung off of her son's skin, as if it had touched him.

"I smell it." Solus commented. "It's faint, but I can smell it."

"Who or whatever it was has been here. By the Gods, Solus, it touched Arkelus, he smells of it." Riyanna was at a loss. Loss brought painc. Painc lead her to unadultrated rage. A rage so great she thought her body would be destroyed by the force of it.

"So what are our options?" Solus asked, mostly to calm her. If given a question to focus on, she usually was able to focus.

"I know that I smelled that same smell when I died. I know that I seem to be the only one who can track it, for whatever reason."

"I can smell it, but not as stronglyt as you. That can be a large plus." Solus added.

"We need to find out if anyone else knows the smell." Riyanna folded her arms under her breasts, thinking.

"Raina." Solus whispered.

"Chaos? How do you know?" Riyanna asked.

"Just before she died, if you remember she said it seemed that the world was covered in the corpses of the newly dead. Maybe she was talking about the smell."

"It's a long shot, but it's a start." Riyanna and Solus left to find their closest only friend: Raina, also know as Chaos.


End file.
